Disc openers are commonly used with agricultural and farming equipment to furrow and thus ready a planting surface for seed and fertilizer. Increasingly, single disc openers are being used in place of conventional double disc openers as single disc openers have been found to be more effective in cutting through heavy residue compared to its double disc opener counterpart. Further, the number of rotating disc openers to service and otherwise maintain is less than that of double disc openers.
Notwithstanding the above, and other, advantages of single disc openers, there are still areas for potential improvement for such openers. For example, due to the excessive residue generally encountered with single disc openers which are used directly with the previous season's stubble, e.g., residue, additional spacing is needed between adjacent disc openers, which often requires additional ranks. The additional space further requires more vertical range of movement for the disc openers to accommodate a greater vertical operation due to significant surface undulations that may be encountered.
For conventional single disc openers, the seed delivery channels are typically arranged slightly behind the center of the disc opener at the soil cut line. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, consistency is critical and thus there is a tremendous desire for maintaining a constant relationship between the disc opener, the delivery channel, and the plane of the planting surface. Generally, this relationship has been maintained, or at least attempted to, by a parallel link system that keeps the components level with the frame or, more commonly, by a long trailing arm mount to reduce angular variation during elevation changes while, ideally, the components should remain normal to the planting surface. A depth setting wheel adjacent the disc opener is then used to adjustably set the depth that the disc opener penetrates the planting surface. Providing support for these components that accommodates the needed range of vertical motion has been found to be relatively difficult and costly.
Further, conventional single disc openers are angled to the direction of travel at an angle between five and seven degrees. The angling of the disc openers allows the disc openers to cut a slash through the planting surface wide enough to introduce seed and/or fertilizer into the cut surface. The angling, however, has been found to result in a relatively large side load on the mounting mechanism used to mount the disc opener to the carrier boom. As such, conventional implements have required robust and costly bushings in the mounting mechanism to counter the side loading.
Conventional implements have a frame or chassis to which multiple sets of disc openers will be mounted. To provide a broad width of coverage and thus limit the number of passes required to prepare a planting surface, some of the disc openers will be mounted to wing booms that extend laterally away from the central frame. However, when in transport, it is desired to narrow the overall width of the implement and, as such, the wing booms are generally lifted and folded to a transport position over or adjacent the central frame. The central frame is supported by front and rear wheel units that are sized to handle the load placed thereon by the central frame and the wing booms during transport. The disadvantage of this system is the separate hydraulics required to, on one hand, apply pressure to the openers in field position, and on another hand, swing their mount frames into transport position.